


Walk Me Home in the Dead of Night

by Trapelo_Road475



Category: Adam-12
Genre: And Now The Sex, Gentle cuddling is the new X-Rated, Jim had no plan for this, M/M, plot exposition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24491179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trapelo_Road475/pseuds/Trapelo_Road475
Summary: What do you call it when you bring your partner over, buy him dinner, and sit with him on your one-bachelor couch drinking coke and eating chips?What do you call it, when you do all that, and a week ago you slammed your partner up against a wall and kissed him hard, desperate not to lose him like the last one?This is not a date, but it is definitely a date.
Relationships: Pete Malloy/Jim Reed
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14





	Walk Me Home in the Dead of Night

He had been young, too, once. And fast.

Well. Maybe not that. Never tore up the track, never was a speed demon. He was the thinker, and on the backside of that, the fists when the chips came down. Busted his knuckles on a few faces, back before there was hair there to soften the scars. When he was young. 

(or younger. he isn't old, after all.)

The kid, Jim, sits ramrod-straight on his couch, doe eyes on a military bearing, his face like he's expecting something, like he's waiting. They had dinner, Mexican takeout from a little stand a block from his apartment - tacos, fresh from the fryer, crisp lettuce, sour cream and dots of hot sauce that lay in wait like atomic bombs, cokes and corn chips. Pete's lips are still burning from the salsa. 

(must be the salsa)

Jim's coke is sweating like a junkie in withdrawals and the bottle is making a ring on the coffeetable, and he thinks Jim probably has coasters at home, he seems like a coaster person, him and his wife, nice girl his wife is. Jean's a pretty girl, and smarter, he thinks, than she'd let anyone know - he likes her, there's iron in her eyes, and he thinks there's a fierceness there that must hang over Jim's exhausting calm like smoke on water. 

He wouldn't dare hurt her. He respects her too much for that. 

(funny thing: the guys, they wouldn't peg him for respecting a woman that way, not just that he's not handsy but he likes a gal who looks him in the eye and says, Pete, it was fun, but it's time to go our own ways. likes a gal he can talk to.)

Jim wouldn't hurt her. It wouldn't occur to him. Too good, too decent, too clean. You can smell the leather and wool of the letterman's jacket, feel the weight of the books in his hands. He's still young, and he'd never hurt her, and Pete makes fun of him for being domesticated but he respects that, he has to.

They had dinner, in his spare apartment with the blackout curtains in the bedroom and the mismatched plates in the kitchen. The refrigerator and the cupboards full of sensibly non-perishable things. 

And Jim sits up like a rabbit in the brush, all but twitching at the ears and nose, like he's waiting for something, like the answer is there and he's only waiting for the question.

Pete is not good at conversation. He is good at listening. He likes to take it all in, before he makes a decision. In the classroom, years ago, he was a quiet boy, the boy in the corner taking his time, some days talking with his fists. He imagines Jim, bright and eager, the kid in the front of the classroom, interrupting, apologizing, asking questions. Pete holds the coke bottle loosely in his hands, studies the curvature of it, the cool weight, the psychedelic seasick world through the bottom. He wishes Jim would ask whatever question it is.

Long-fingered hands clasp, unclasp. 

"Well?"

Pete startles: his apartment doesn't hear voices. It swallows them up. 

Clears his throat: "Well, what?"

"Well, aren't we gonna - you know."

Pete thinks he knows the answer floating between them but he feigns an air. "What, 'you know', partner?"

Jim is red as a Christmas light bulb. He glows. Pete chuckles. Even flustered, even balking on his own tongue, the brilliant, stupid kid is beautiful - and he doesn't often say that for men, though men have their own kind of beauty - with his big blue eyes and his sharp jaw and lashes that most women would have to buy in a bottle at the drugstore. Jim is beautiful and makes him laugh, sometimes, even with exasperation. 

After Tommy Parker, he hadn't given much thought to laughing, or to beautiful things, and the guys in the lockerroom would crack some joke, or he'd see a gal or a man on the street - someone he'd have given the soft eyes to, the little smile, before Tommy - and it would feel like part of him just wasn't there.

First thing Jim made him feel was angry, but that was familiar, that lived in his fists and in his scars.

But god, the kid was smart, the kid made him smile. 

"Well, after what you said - back at Central Receiving, you know, after the Eisley case - "

Said, that was funny. Pete hadn't said more than a hand of words, just slammed the boy up against the wall of a stairwell at the hospital, all but bit his throat in eager panic, the swell of arousal smacking right into the downslope of terror, his fingers in Jim's hair and breathing in antiseptic, his cheek against the soft thick bandage on Jim's cheek. Boy, he'd said, heavy as a rockslide, his voice trapped in a cave, boy, don't ever fucking do that again.

(Jim had not done anything wrong, per se - not wrong, by the books, just dumb bad luck he was the one walking in first and they'd miscounted the perps - and Pete had had to sit by for an hour not knowing, and what he meant was don't scare me like that again, but all the fear was in his lips and teeth and hands, like some volatile medicine in a glass he intended Jim to swallow down.)

Jim is starting to sweat. Like he's made a mistake, the way he bites his bottom lip when Pete's about to give him a lecture. 

"Oh, you mean, are we gonna have sex?"

The kid's a shade of pink Pete has not ever seen outside of a biology textbook. But he nods, practically vibrating.

Pete sighs, leans back on his couch (there is one couch: what does he need two for?), into its plush and sturdy arm, spreading wide his arms and smiling, gently. "C'mere then."

Jim sort of tumbles toward him, legs and arms, as awkward as a teenager in a backseat, as clumsy as a fledgling struggling to take to the sky. It takes a moment - a patient moment, a thinking moment - for his arms, his chest, his cheek - to find a rest, a place where the two of them entwine. Pete strokes the soft hair at the back of Jim's neck, and lays a kiss on his jaw. He was not much of a talker, and he was never fast. Jim's breathing slows, and his hand goes to Pete's arm while his mouth tickles his throat like he's asking, asking permission now.

Pete inhales, sharply, stumbling over the memories: Tommy Parker, sheet over his face. Jim, cheek bruised up like a ripe plum, rope-burned at the wrists, raw at the heart. The bandage and the hospital smell that stays with you.

"Pete?" 

"Yeah."

"Sure this is alright?"

"You didn't think to ask that til after you're all but in my lap?"

"Sorry."

Pete shakes his head. He likes the feel of Jim's body breathing against him. Men have a certain kind of beauty, by themselves. And Jim is beautiful.

"Don't be sorry," he says. "Don't be. Just c'mere, alright? C'mon."

Pete's been the thinker all his life, the thinker and the fists on the backside of it, the boy who broke his knuckles on more than a few faces, but only when he had to. Only when he really meant it. 

Been on a lot of dates, too. Had sex with a fair share of guys and gals. Made love to a few, even.

But only, he thinks, bringing his partner closer, only when he really meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the P!nk song of the same name. Sorry, P!nk, but it worked so well.


End file.
